Sunday, September 11, 2011

Remembering
9/11

Ten
years ago, we were all terribly frightened and we were mourning the
unbearable losses of our own families or those of others. The
question "why do they hate us?" was raised frequently but
few were in a position to think about an answer.

But
now it is ten years later and the newspapers are engaged in an orgy
of remembering 9/11. Not a day passes without several articles in the
paper and programs on the radio remembering, telling stories about
the individual experiences connected with 9/11. But as far as I can
tell, still no one raises the question "why do they hate us?"
That important question has still not been confronted. Instead the
pain and fear of 10 years ago is being rehearsed over and over again.
We are, frankly, encouraged to feel sorry for ourselves.

Ten
years ago, many people thought that we were innocent victims. We had
done nothing to earn the enmity of the people in the Middle East, or
of Muslims. The current wave of self-pity tends to encourage that
sense of innocent victimhood and thereby discourages any inclination
to think seriously about our role in that terrible day.

It
is common wisdom that conflicts between individuals or nations result
from both parties and their actions. It should be common wisdom for
us to ask ourselves whether our very unpopularity around the world
is not in part the result of what we have done, of the positions we
have taken, of the way we have to talked to, and talked about other
people on earth.

It
is my sense, that we owe our unpopularity, in part, to our own
actions and that we bear part of the responsibility for 9/11. Let's
just take some clear examples.

To
put it in plain English, Americans consider themselves superior to
the rest of the world. The members of the State Department may not
drive around with a license plate saying "America -- Number 1"
but our Secretary of State regularly goes around the world lecturing
people, telling them what to do and letting them know whether we
approve of them or not. That is not only arrogant, but it does not
make us popular. It you don't believe me, listen carefully the next
time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton makes it into the newspaper
or on the evening news. Is she being respectful of other nations?

We
don't need to go far back into history to discover why people don't
like us a whole lot: we are not only rude but also often dishonest
and hypocritical. We participated in bombing Libya in order, we said,
to protect civilians. The Libyan government threatened
civilians. The
government of Syria has killed
more than 2000 people and we have done nothing to speak of. What's
the difference? The White House and the State Department have not
really said. But there is a widespread perception that control of
Libyan oil is of great interest to us; oil in Syria is not. Moreover
oil is more important than people and their liberty. But our
government would never admit that. We present ourselves to the world
as terribly high-minded. We only care about freedom and democracy. We
poses as champions of freedom and democracy.

But
when the people in Egypt, in Tunisia, in Bahrain and Yemen, as in
Libya and Syria, revolted, the US hung back, overly anxious not to
offend the autocratic rulers of countries that sell their oil to us
or who were, for other reasons our allies. It took many weeks before
we dared to say publicly that we supported and welcomed the
rebellions. We proved ourselves to be excessively timid and lukewarm
champions of freedom and democracy.

No
wonder we are unpopular.

Terrorism
is not only the result of poverty and desperation. It arises
sometimes, at least, from righteous anger. It we managed to to treat
people more respectfully and were less dishonest, we might well be a
lot safer in this world.